Doha transfers from Spain to Morocco have almost doubled in the past ten years and have positioned Morocco as the second largest recipient of money transfers from the European country. This emerges from the latest data from the Bank of Spain, which have been analyzed from the target.
In 2023 transfers to Morocco reached € 1.375 billion, which corresponds to 13.1% of the total transfers from Spain and 0.09% of Spanish GDP.
This marks an astonishing leap ten years ago when transfers to Morocco made only 7.4% of the total transfers and 0.04% of Spain -BIP.
The increase in transfers correlates with the growing Moroccan community in Spain, which has expanded out of 200,000 people in just two years.
Moroccans are now the largest foreign population in Spain, which, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute, exceeds one million inhabitants.
Colombia includes its position as the main goal of transfers from Spain and receives 14.7% of the total transfers, which corresponds to 1.5 billion euros.
The total transfer run from Spain reached EUR 10.7 billion in 2023, which made a increase in Spanish GDP of 0.7% of Spanish GDP, which has increased by 0.5 percentage points since the Covid 19 pandemic.
The current of the Spanish transfers drives the dominance of Morocco in Diaspora transfers. Morocco exchange office reported These total transfers from the Moroccan diaspora worldwide reached 117.7 billion (11.7 billion US dollars) in 2024 MAD, which characterized an increase of 2.1% compared to 2023.
The country holds its position as the second largest recipient of transfers in the Mena region to Egypt. In addition, Morocco’s foreign direct investments improved significantly and reached MAD 17.23 billion (1.7 billion US dollars), which increased in 55.4% compared to the previous year.
This upward trend will be continued with the exchange office until 2025 reporting In January alone, the transfers of Moroccans abroad reached 9.45 billion (950 million US dollars), slightly higher than the MAD 9.4 billion, which were recorded in the same period of the previous year.
The landscape of the transfer flows has changed significantly since 2013 when Ecuadorian, Bolivian and Romanian residents in Spain have transmitted more money than Moroccan.
Recently before pandemic in 2019, the residents of Ecuadorians broadcast larger quantities.
Other remarkable increases in the transfer flows from Spain are Honduras, which have more than doubled, to 4.9% of the total transfers and achieved € 520 million, and Pakistan, which has risen from 2% to 4.4% of total transfers.
Spain states that transfers have risen both worldwide and within Spain and that the migration patterns reflect, the Spain-transfer-to-BIP ratio remains below the international average in the past, even though it shows “remarkable dynamics”.
This growth of the transfer streams has attracted new financial service providers. Digital platforms arise to facilitate these transfers, which indicates a developing financial landscape for international money transfers from Spain.
